Gloucester University Rugby 1st XV's Nazi-themed initiation ceremony was caught on camera this week by a fellow student at the university. The footage, which was sold to the BBC, showed players dressed in SS uniforms parading the newer members through the streets with plastic bags over their heads, followed by vomiting due to their excessive drinking.
A university spokesman said an inquiry was being launched into alleged "bullying and intimidation" during initiation ceremonies. The National Union of Students has called for a ban on initiations. UJS campaigns officer Yair Zivan said: "The use of a Nazi uniform in this initiation was in terrible taste and hugely insensitive. The horrors of the Nazi regime should not be trivialised in this manner."
Mark Gardner, a spokesman for the CST, called this a "pathetic" act, seeing it as "exactly the kind of thing that makes Jewish students - or anybody from an ethnic minority - feel isolated and uncomfortable".
